Questionnaires
Rumination. The Ruminative Response Scale (RRS) is administered to measure the degree of ruminative thinking styles of individuals (Nolen-Hoeksema & Morrow, 1991; Dutch translation by Raes et al., 2007). The RRS consists of 22 items describing how participants respond to a depressed mood, related to focusing on the self, symptoms, and the origin and consequences of the distress. This self-report questionnaire asks participants to respond on a 4-point Likert scale rating the frequency with which they generally think or do certain things when they feel sad, down, or depressed (i.e., 1 = almost never, 2 = sometimes, 3 = often, 4 = most of the time). The questionnaire also consists of two subscales: brooding and reflection. Brooding means a passive comparison of one’s current situation with some unachieved work, and reflection means a purposeful turning inward to engage in cognitive problem-solving to alleviate one’s depressive symptoms (Treynor et al., 2003). General Cronbach’s alphas of RRS were .92, .78, and .75 for the RRS total scale, and the brooding and reflection subscales, respectively (Schoofs et al., 2010). All reported Cronbach’s alphas are cited from previously executed validation studies and not from the current dataset, including the depression questionnaires below. 1150 participants in the dataset had RRS scores available.
Depression. Three different questionnaires were used to evaluate the presence of depressive symptoms, namely the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI)-II (Beck et al., 1996; Dutch version Van der Does, 2002), The Mood and Anxiety Symptoms Questionnaire (MASQ) (Wardenaar et al., 2010), and the depression subscale of the Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scale (DASS-21) (de Beurs et al., 2001; Henry & Crawford, 2005). Given that the studies used three different questionnaires to assess depression, a standardized Z score was computed to increase the total sample size for our dataset (DepressionStandardized).
Beck Depression Inventory-II. The BDI-II is administered to evaluate depressive symptoms. The BDI-II is a widely used self-report questionnaire consisting of 21 multiples-choice format items (4-point scale), to assess the presence and severity of cognitive, motivational, affective, and somatic symptoms of depression in the past two weeks. Past reports demonstrated established reliability and validity in clinical and non-clinical samples, with Cronbach’s alpha of .92 and .93 in a psychiatric and student population, respectively (Alexandrowicz et al., 2014). 288 participants in the dataset had BDI-II scores available.
Mood and Anxiety Symptoms Questionnaire. The MASQ is one of the common use self-reported questionnaires to assess symptoms of depression and anxiety. The questionnaire is designed to measure a tripartite model of anxiety and depression, which assumes that symptoms of depression and anxiety can be described in three dimensions. ”General Distress” includes general symptoms of psychological distress, ”Anhedonic Depression” describes a lack of positive emotions and loss of energy, and ”Anxiety Arousal” describes symptoms of excessive physical arousal (Watson et al., 1995). The MASQ used in this study consists of 30 items in the Dutch version with each item scored on a 5-point Likert scale (i.e., 1 = not at all, 2 = a little, 3 = moderately, 4 = quite a bit, 5 = extremely) in the past week (including today). Cronbach’s alpha of Anhedonic Depression was from .93 to .95 (Wardenaar et al., 2010). 218 participants in the dataset had MASQ scores available.
Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scale. The DASS measures the presence of depressive symptoms, anxiety, and stress in the past 7 days. The DASS consists of 21 items rated on a 4-Point Likert scale (0 = Not at all or never applicable, 1 = A little or sometimes applicable, 2 = Proper or often applicable, 3 = Very sure or mostly applicable) and widely used in clinical settings to assist in diagnosis and outcome monitoring and in non-clinical settings as a mental health screening. The scale has three subscales, depression, anxiety, and stress, each containing seven items, The higher the score, the higher the level of negative emotions. The Cronbach’s alpha of the DASS-21 was .88 for the depression scale and .93 for the total scale (Henry & Crawford, 2005). 459 participants in the dataset had DASS scores available.